Boca Ciega, Florida — A chemistry project caused a big problem at Pinellas’ Seminole High School Tuesday morning.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office says students were given an assignment to bring in a substance from the Periodic Table of Elements.
One student brought in mercury — contained within a thermometer — and the school went into lockdown. [more]

Multiple ounces? My school chem lab had a big bottle of the stuff that was difficult to lift.

You hit on something there, the metal is non toxic, you can drink it and find strange silver blobs in your poo a few days later. I heard a story about that years ago, don't remember the details about the poo. On the other hand the salts can be anything from toxic to deadly, mercurious nitrate was used for blocking felt hats, the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland wore one which was the clue. The phrase mad as a hatter was popular before this was discovered and other compounds used.

Mercury nitrate was used to process animal fibers used for making felt. This is where the hatter's mad partner comes in, this too is toxic and produces symptoms imitating madness and gave rise to the phrase mad as a March Hare.

Now how did Lewis Carroll's vivid imagination come about? I refer you to one of his lesser known books, Confessions Of A Hashish Eater.

And to think this revelation was inspired by paranoid reaction to a drop of mercury... WOO HOO!

In school, we used to get an old dime and dip it in mercury, and voila, nice and shiny.
(Warren, I think "Confession of a Hasheesh Eater" was written by Fitz Ludlow. I've not heard of this writing in a long time, so I could be wrong. If so I apologize.)

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